


Five Times They Almost Realize

by Duomi



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, No Dialogue, Will is a little dense, sort of fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 09:50:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13144149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duomi/pseuds/Duomi
Summary: Five times Hannibal and Will almost realized the truth of their relationship and one time they did. Canon compliant, just showing a few scenes from the series to reflect the boys' thoughts.This is my gift for the 2017 Hannibal Holiday Exchange! Happy holidays to Mikoto, my giftee.





	Five Times They Almost Realize

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the 2017 Hannibal Holiday Exchange! Happy holidays Mikoto. Your prompt was for a fic on when Hannigram realize each other. I took that to sort of mean when they realized they loved each other. I made it into a ‘five times” thing because Will is pretty much in denial for three seasons.

Five Times Will And Hannibal Almost Realize (And One Time They Do)

 

One:

Hannibal almost realized it the first time he saw Will. He met the eyes of the harried special agent and saw what Jack could not: a wolf desperately trying to convince himself he was a dog. Will all but bared his teeth at Hannibal, twitchy and aggressively uncomfortable.

At that moment, Hannibal fell in love with Will’s potential.

 

Two:

The second time Hannibal almost realized it was when Tobias Budge strolled into his office, interrupting a session with Franklyn, blood dripping from a bullet hole in his ear. At that moment the feeling registered as concern—concern mainly that his Mongoose hadn’t beaten the snake whose lair Hannibal had sent him into.

When Budge was dead and Hannibal was left to his own thoughts, he noticed that the concern was tinged with regret. He always played a rash and impulsive game but one wasn’t supposed to care for the pieces.

The relief he felt when Will entered his office a step behind Jack was almost overwhelming, like the crescendo of a masterful composition. His eyes shone as he smiled up at Will and he found somewhat to his surprise that he hadn’t forced the tears.

Will gravitated to Hannibal’s side, leaning against his desk mere inches from the doctor’s knees. He wasn’t comfortable with physical gestures. Part of him still wanted to reach out and touch Hannibal to make sure that he was okay, and when he met Hannibal’s eyes he saw the same desire reflected there before the other man smiled and looked away. For now it was enough to know that they had both survived, and that they weren’t alone.

 

Three:

The third time they nearly realized it was the first time that Will began to see the shape of what they were becoming. The idea of family was an alien concept to Will. He could study it, read about, but it was always out of reach.

Abigail changed that. More than his pack of strays she had become a daughter to him, and he strove to keep her safe. Hannibal was his trusted partner; they had acted together to counsel Abigail out of writing her story, and Will always knew that he could turn to Hannibal for advice. After all, they had saved her from the darkness together.

It wasn’t until Will learned the truth about Nicholas Boyle’s death that he knew the extent to which he’d come to see them as his pack. Going to Jack with the news had never even been an option. He went to Hannibal instead, confronting the other man in his office, expecting excuses or comforting lies.

Instead, Hannibal put words to what Will had been thinking. He named them both Abigail’s fathers and tasked Will with protecting her as he had been doing.

The burden of family was heavy. It twisted in Will’s stomach, mixing guilt with responsibility, love and remorse. Staring out the window, Will was barely aware of Hannibal’s hand on his shoulder. Hannibal was his anchor. Now, more than ever, it felt like the waters were rising and he was losing sight of the shore.

 

Four:

The fourth time was, admittedly, more dramatic than the others. Will’s long play at being a fisher of men had gone badly. He had convinced himself that Hannibal was playing into his game and that he was unaffected by everything he and Hannibal had shared. The long talks, letting his inner monster out into the light, even for a short time, to speak with Hannibal. He had almost convinced himself they meant nothing.

He hadn’t succeeded. Will had a strong ability to deny his feelings even to himself but that didn’t make them any less real. When he let his guard down he had let Hannibal inside of him.

He had known that that might happen. He had accepted the risk. In the end, he had miscalculated. For all his talk of a reckoning he couldn’t keep a part of himself from forgiving Hannibal, from being comforted by his presence. Hannibal had seen all of Will’s ugliness and had deemed it beautiful. That was more intoxicating than Will had ever imagined.

His surrogate daughter, newly risen from the dead, had met him in the kitchen. Will turned, finding Hannibal covered in blood—some of it his own—but he didn’t feel fear. In that instant, meeting Hannibal’s eyes, Will saw love. It was wounded, maybe dying, but Will marveled at it and knew regret. In one moment he saw the future that Hannibal had planned for the three of them. He remembered the concept of family, the heaviness and headiness of it.

For just an instant he knew what could have been, and he teetered on the edge of a revelation that was even greater. Almost, almost, he looked inside of himself and saw that same love reflected.

Then the linoleum knife caught him in the gut. He clung to Hannibal, shaking, as Hannibal murmured his plans for them into his ear. Every word compounded the pain of the knife.

And then Hannibal turned to Abigail, and Will realized that his pain had been nothing before.

 

Five:

The fifth time was a slow burn. Hannibal had been in Alana’s hospital for three years. Will was acutely aware of the time.

Will had Molly now. He focused himself on the singular task of becoming a boring, average man. He sank into her crass practicality and tried to drown the last vestiges of who he’d been before her, back in his other life. Molly didn’t like to hear about his past. She would have been horrified if she ever learned of the darkness that echoed through the edges of Will’s mind. Even the edited nightmares he shared with her were enough to disturb her own sleep and eventually Will stopped telling her. With practice he was almost able to convince himself that the person that Molly saw was real, not an elaborate construct patched together of mirrors and denial.

He was striving to be a simple man. Molly needed that. Walter needed that, too. Will hadn’t been able to protect Abigail, but he thought that there was a chance he could hide in this ready-made family and never have to see himself again.

That hope fled with the crunch of Jack’s tires onto the property of Will’s new home. It was killed entirely when Molly, who he’d protected from the terrible reality of his abilities, urged him to go with Jack.

Will settled in front of the fireplace while Molly slept peacefully upstairs, convinced she’d done the right thing. The moral thing. She knew that Will could help people, and even if he warned her she couldn’t realize how much of the Will she knew was only a homunculus.

Opening Hannibal’s letter, Will pored over it, hearing Hannibal’s voice in his mind as clearly as if the other man were there with him and not several states away. The letter was a reminder that everything he had created for himself was a lie.

Even as he tossed the letter and its newspaper clipping onto the fire and watched the edges curl and smoke he knew the truth. Will would never get away from Hannibal. He was already inside of Will’s mind, lurking in the edges of his heart.

 

Six: 

The last time was the first time Hannibal and Will both saw each other, no boundaries between them, and knew what they were to each other. They hunted Dollarhyde as a pack would hunt, flanking him. Hannibal’s teeth ripped into the Red Dragon’s throat as Will’s linoleum knife tore his stomach, and Will and Hannibal embraced over their kill.

They were understood. The two of them stood apart from the world that had always rejected Will, that he had worked so hard for so many years to fit into. For the first time Will let those expectations go and saw Hannibal through his own eyes and not the blinders of morality that he’d forced himself to wear.

Will had never known peace before that moment. Neither of them had ever known wholeness. Closing his eyes, Will leaned out with Hannibal, guiding them over the edge of the cliff beside them. He didn’t know what would become of them, but they were together.

 

\--

 

Sorry for the depressing end! Let’s hope Fuller is able to save us all from that cliffhanger and we get our fourth season Murder Husbands. Happy Hannidays Mikoto, hope you liked it!


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